Interesting timing, wouldn’t you say?

Posted on by

Everyone who hasn’t spent the last few months in outer space or living under a rock knows there is a pretty big election already underway in Rockingham County.  The county’s sheriff, Sam Page, is challenging incumbent state senator Phil Berger – that chamber’s president – in the May 2026 GOP primary.

The gloves are clearly off already in the race.  Polling shows Page up big.  Berger’s team is rolling out high-profile endorsements to try and slow things down.  Their barrage included an April 10 endorsement of Berger from Alamance County sheriff Terry Johnson – a long time colleague and close friend of Rockingham’s sheriff Page.

As you can see, this endorsement went public on April 10.  (Alamance is NOT part of Berger’s Senate district.) 

Now, let’s move over to the NC General Assembly website.  There, you can find all kinds of legislation and their details. We’re interested in House Bill 74, known as a “technical corrections’ document.  “Technical corrections” are for editing / “correcting” bills that have already passed.  Supposedly, only typos and other small errors like that are addressed on these technical corrections bills.

But, as you can see on the NCGA site, HB 74 went through four different versions before it got passed.  The original version of the bill, filed February 10, made no mention of Alamance County nor its sheriff’s department.

Edition 1, filed February 11, also did not mention Alamance County or its sheriff’s department.

Edition 2, a committee substitute reported favorably on March 3, also did not include any mention of Alamance County or its sheriff’s department.

Edition 3 — identified as a Senate Appropriations/Base Budget Committee Substitute — was adopted on April 29.  For the first time in the history of this bill, the following information was included:

Remember: The endorsement of Senator Berger by Alamance Sheriff Johnson went public on April 10.  

Edition 4 — which went on to be the final version — also included the above excerpted language and was adopted on May 1.

This COULD just be pure coincidence. Nothing more.  But the timing of it all — as we said earlier — IS interesting.